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Bias
interview
128 added 09.02.03 words
BSE
I met up with the esteemed Mr. Bias on the eve of his new "Worry Beads" EP hitting the shops.
He looks like a regular feller, not obviously someone
you would picture locked in a room with a sampler and stacks of charity
shop records.
 "Hiphop was really big in Kent" says Bias. "I had this mate who was so
ahead of his time, he was a mad graffer and breaker but everybody thought
he was a bit weird. He sort of taught me to deejay". Starting with a wood
veneer record deck with an on board amp and a stacking arm, adding a Technics, with a Made to Fade mixer, he would
practice at home and play at
friends houses and parties. Around that time Lewis Parker moved from London
to Canterbury and started at the same school. When there were clubs to play
they were there, "Galliano did a big night and we all deejayed there,
mainly acid jazz and Jamiroquai, we just tagged along with them".
Did he amass a big record collection? "Big in a sense to a normal person
who buys records, but not in the collectors stakes no. I've got a lot of
film soundtracks. I started getting into what was a rare soundtrack, I used
to go down to Brighton, and there's this guy who's been selling soundtracks
all his life and he'd tell me what was rare, and I'd end up fucking
spending fifty quid on the American Werewolf in London album, and it's
shit, so I thought fucking hell I've got to collect soundtracks because I
can't bare to look at this record in my collection that cost me so much and
it's shit."
Bias first came to the attention of Britain's Hiphop heads
after doing the wicked scratches on Lewis' early recordings; "When I was up
north in Liverpool, the Scratch Perverts came up to do a night, and they
were doing all the crab scratches, and I was just like, fuckin' hell, I was
just blown away, you know? I hadn't seen anything like that, especially not
in the north. I was like, fuckin hell I've been sleeping I haven't seen any
of this stuff. It took me ages to learn how to do flares and crabs.", but
by the time he was getting down on record he had all the scratches locked
down and moved up to making beats himself.
"My first sampler was a Yamaha. A little SU10 with pads, really shit, but
because its shit you kind of learn how to do other things. Then I bought an
Akai 900 for about 200 quid and I still use that now. There's other stuff
but that's still the basis." With a bit of help on the 900 from Lewis, he
set off on teaching himself. Reading about tricks in magazines and finding
out how people like Premier did it.
"....I'd end up fucking spending fifty quid on the 'American Werewolf in London' album, and it's shit ...."
Not long after he started making beats he released the "Relax and rock" EP.
It was a white label release of 500 copies featuring five tracks of (for
the time) very unusually mellow Hiphop beats. "Drifting on a memory"
features Lewis Parker reminiscing about the old days and life in general
and is probably his best rhyming on wax. The instrumental of the track,
rather than being just the beat, has a scratch track and a flute solo
played by a friend; "He played about an hour worth of flute, I sampled the
best lines and then arranged them on the track. It took me fucking ages."
It is a feat not often attempted in Hiphop and was thoroughly rewarding;
"He was amazing I've not been able to find anyone like that."
"The problem with me is, cos I'm not an MC, when your making a beat you get
bored fucking quickly" he explains "If you have a vocalist you can make a
beat more complete, but if you haven't you need like a flute or something
else to make it a track in its own right." "I always think my stuffs not
right for emcees. So I don't often play things to emcees."
This dedication to making full instrumental Hiphop tracks rather than just
"beats" takes Bias into DJ Shadow territory. Less so on "Relax and rock"
but with his new EP "Worry Beads" he makes that step up.
"I think production is really important, especially in England." says Bias,
"Jehst's 'High Planes Drifter' is the best thing I've heard in a while,
that's my pinnacle of what's been happening in England recently. The first EP was done when I'd just started making beats, I didn't
understand where you got drums from or how to chop 'em up. So I would take
old school Fat Boys drums, all the old Hiphop, that's why on a couple of
those tracks they sound like drum machines. Now I can chop up drum breaks
much better." He also upped the bassline quota on his new record; "All
stuff I do now, I gotta have a bass in it. It just makes a track."
"Worry Beads" is a stunningly beautiful record. A cohesive unit that sets
out to fuse Hiphop beats with folk samples and vocals and absolutely
succeeds. If you heard the "Delirious" seven inch then you know what to
expect. The record is bookended with an intro and an outro and it very much
a mini-album rather than a bunch of tracks slung on vinyl. The cover is a
riff on a Joni Mitchell album and is very much in keeping with the music,
the hippie images of nude women and flowers meeting the choppers and
soldiers of Apocalypse Now.
It is clear when listening to "Worry Beads" that there is a massive
potential audience for this record. Most anyone who likes Shadow, Attica
blues, or even Moby would surely appreciate it. The sample craftsmanship is
of a very high standard which should attract the Hiphoppers and the break
connoisseurs, but that isn't really enough. When there are people listening
to drearily predictable chill out albums and unimaginative "inoffensive"
beat music it is unacceptable to have music like this go unnoticed by the
masses. Bias guesses "the sort of people who'd probably like my stuff are
the sort of people who need to be told about it in magazines." The
Hiphoppers have supported the seven inch; "When I put the first records in
the shops, they all flew out and I thought fucking hell this is amazing"
but a few weeks later, "I went back in and they weren't selling."
"Bongos have been wicked, they got rid of most of the sevens and they paid
me up front. Full props for Bongos for doing that. I was quite intimidated
by it all cos I had to take the records round the shops and I thought 'Oh
they're not gonna like this', You go in there and its a moody crowd on a
Saturday all listening to hard Hiphop and I'm thinking 'shit I'm putting on
this hippie stuff', but they took it and they liked it."
Bias and mate Dan (who does the artwork) set up Canteen Records themselves;
"The label is all about trying to get people out who wouldn't have a chance
to get stuff out. Making sure it's of a high quality, the covers, the music
and everything, so people are getting their money's worth." The third
release on the label will be an EP from Giacomo, a long time friend and
collaborator. After that? "Hopefully there'll be different things in the
future, singers, indie music, and a couple of other little groups from
Kent." The idea of Bias working with a vocalist seems promising. "I'm
working with a singer, she's got a fucking great voice, again its kind of
folky." So folky, Hiphop, sounds like Portishead? "It's not as morbid a
Portishead." He's not sampling the vocals and putting them on the track
like he did with the flute though "The beats are a bit more complex. All
the beats have been programmed and then she'll come and well do it live.
It's hard work."
".... Someone like Beck can do a Hillbilly country record and the press will say its great. They can do whatever they want and people will buy it. What a life ....."
Bias admits to having been, like many, a Hiphop fundamentalist as a
teenager. Not wanting to hear any other music, no singers, no instruments,
but he's mellowed; "I think any music that people are making that's not
conforming or worried about what everybody else is doing, that's where the
best music comes from. That's why a lot of good music comes from like
suburbs and shitty places cos they're not part of scenes where people are
always worried about what each others doing, just getting on with it for
themselves. Perhaps where I came from as well, why my samples are a bit
different or whatever, because that's just what I liked. This is the breaks
I like, so this is what I'm gonna make." It is hard selling this music
yourself though; "Shadow is really lucky" he points out "cos no matter what
he does now people will listen to it and the music press will tell them to
listen to it. Someone like Beck can do a Hillbilly country record and the
press will say its great. They can do whatever they want and people will
buy it. What a life."
Bias is pushing as hard as anyone to get there though "I'm working nine to
five selling advertising, then come home too tired to make any beats, then
if I want to have some sort of social life, that takes time, then where's
the time to make music or go digging for breaks? How do I fit it all in? If
I didn't do it I wouldn't put any music out and wouldn't have any money to
get equipment. So I cant win unless I get a deal really."
"My friend who put the first record out said to me don't get into it, its a
loss loss situation." Is that how he finds it? "Financially it is but I've
got to do it, I'd go insane if I didn't do it."
Bias is working his arse off for his music, it would be nice if we in
Hiphop could give him a leg-up to the mainstream magazines and newspapers,
to take his place alongside the other Hiphoppers that have gained a wider
acceptance. He deserves it.
The record starts "DJ Bias has officially been reinstated". "Well yeah,
that remains to be seen" says Bias.
Bias discography:
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B-Boy Antics - Lewis Parker (Various scratches)
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Visions of Splendour - Lewis Parker (Scratches)
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Relax & Rock - DJ Bias (Production, scratches)
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Shadows of Autumn - Lewis Parker (Scratches)
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Masquerades & Silhouettes - Lewis Parker (Various scratches)
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Delirious - Bias (Production, scratches)
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It's All Happening Now - Lewis Parker (Various scratches)
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Worry Beads - Bias (Production, scratches)
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BSE
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